


[Re]verse Cinderella

by Thadeus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fantasy, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thadeus/pseuds/Thadeus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thinking Dean doesn't actually love Castiel but it's just a show to trick him into helping the humans, Zachariah takes matters into his own hands by sticking them in an alternate reality where Dean has everything and Cas has nothing to offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As You Wish

“Love! How ridiculous is that!”

The halls of the city temple in First Heaven were filled with angry shouts as the Angel Zachariah slammed his feet against the smooth marble flooring, step after step, pacing.

“Castiel is such a fool, he’s young, he doesn’t see how he’s being deceived!”

Zachariah came to rest between a set of pillars, the view beyond indescribably beautiful, valley after valley of always-fresh green grass, soft rich soil, every flower in existence peppered throughout a forest of weeping willow and oak trees that stretched upward for miles in the bluest blue sky there ever was.

“That Winchester vessel, he’d pretend to love anyone if there was something he wanted! He needs to be taught a lesson!”

The idea came to Zachariah some time later, in no specific amount of minutes, hours or days, because in Heaven, time was an eternal thing, not to be measured or calculated or saved or killed. And the idea was brilliant.

\-------

_Love will find a way._

Lord Dean Winchester didn’t open his eyes. He could feel the weight of a slender arm draped across his waist and pretended that it belonged to the the person in his dream, that when he opened his eyes he could look into the same endless blue, and run his hands through the same dark chestnut hair. The words from his dream echoed in his mind, love will find a way.

But he was the lord of Scarlet Fief and he had things to do more important than anything to do with love.

He opened his eyes, the woman was already awake, he sighed and she smiled to him.

“Again, sire?” she asked, her voice smooth and distinctly feminine. She peered out under thin lashes from liquid brown eyes, blond hair falling across her forehead in strings. She moved a hand forward, sprinkling his naked chest with feather touches.

Dean pushed her hand away, spouting, “No,” gruffly. He removed himself from the silk velvet blankets, standing to stretch, and then began to pull on a pair of thin black pants. “I have things I need to do.”

“As you wish.”

\------------

“Are you even listening to me?” came the weather-beaten words of Dean’s adviser and most trusted friend, Robert Singer. He reached forward, striking Dean across the head with his rolled up parchment.

“I could have you arrested for that,” Dean mumbled, his attention languidly focused on the large stone gate that cut off his manor from the more common members of his fief. “And no, not really.”

They sat together on a stone bench in the courtyard, guards manning the wall that towered over them on one side and the manor itself on the other. The courtyard was wide, most of the grass stamped down to mud trails from the frequent passage of servants and guards, despite the several paths that spidered along the grounds, paved with thick white cobblestone.

A yellow and red speckled bird pecked at the ground a few feet from the bench, quirked it’s head and then took off soaring over the gate.

“I said,” Robert continued in an annoyed voice that demanded authority, “People have been going missing along the brook. There’s been at least twelve in the past week, far as I can tell.”

“But that’s the border mark to Hythera,” Dean said, his face creasing with worry, “Do you think they’ve returned?”

Robert shook his head decisively, “Don’t be stupid. The Hytherans cleared outta there years ago. They wouldn’t show up and suddenly start kidnapping our people, they know better than to start a war with the Noss Kingdom. There’s got to be something else going on.”

“Yeh, but what?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll go check it out,” Dean grinned at the prospect. Anything to keep him out of those endlessly boring meetings that usually filled his days.

\-------------

There were several villages dotted throughout Scarlet Fief, and at least half of them were based along the river, making fishing their main commodity. As Dean reached the larger of the river villages, he wondered briefly how welcome their fishing exports would be if the rest of the kingdom knew that at least twelve people had potentially died in that river. The thought made him smirk, but he frowned immediately after because it suddenly seemed too cruel a thing to be amused by.

His horse, Impala, was the tallest horse in the kingdom by at least three hands, and black as night with a fiery spirit to match. She immediately spotted a drinking trough set firmly against the stables and let out a low whiney, twitching her ears. She pulled against the reins, impatient, and Dean afforded her a few soft pats on the side of her neck, “Alright girl,” he soothed.

Dean dismounted, not an easy feat despite his own height crawling just above six feet, but managed to do it with at least enough grace that nobody stopped to stare.

The village was busy, people bustling about, going in every which way, the average September mid-morning. After stabling his horse, Dean weaved his way through the crowd and reached his destination – a tavern that had clearly seen better days, the step up to the door no more than a chipped concrete block and the green paint around the window frames cracked and peeling. Dean entered, feeling very much like a wayward son returning home for the first time in ten years.

The interior looked better, all wood, leather and lambswool. Behind the counter, a woman who looked only half her true age, lifted her head to greet the incoming customer, and her breath caught in her throat as she spotted Dean.

“Ellen!” Dean grinned, jumping over the counter to grab her in a hug.

She struggled away, smacked him on the arm and pointed her finger into his smiling face.

“Don’t you ‘Ellen’ me!” she ground out, “I haven’t seen that ugly mug of yours in at least two years, and now you just show up at our door?”

Dean grinned cheeky, “Did you miss me?”

“No,” Ellen snapped. She hit him again and ushered him through the door behind the counter, and into the small kitchen that led to her and Jo’s living quarters. There was a small table and three mismatched chairs shoved against the far wall, a little square window, a door and a set of stairs. “Now go upstairs and change out of that shirt, while I make you some soup, you’re probably starving from the ride over and you stink of sweat. You’re too skinny, they don’t feed you enough over in that manor of yours. Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

As Dean grinned and ascended the stairs, Ellen set to work.

At the top of the stairs, there were four doors and Dean entered the first on the left, which had been his room some years ago.

At the end of the war with the Hytherans, he had taken refuge in this village, too weak to travel back to his manor. Ellen and her daughter, Jo, had taken care of him while he regained strength and he came to see them as family, since his own had died in the war. He had tried to get them to come back and live in the manor with him, but they were proud and would never accept even a single farthing. He used Christmas and Birthday holidays to their full advantage and spent the days giving all they would allow him to. But even then.

His room, he doesn’t think he will ever not look at the room as his, was impeccably clean and had the new addition of a corner desk stacked with books. He inspected them, books of math and geography, languages and history. Dean scrunched his nose up, they reminded him of Westley, the snobbish upstart tutor that he grew up with when his father was the Fief Lord.

He heard a door close in the hall, and wet footsteps padding into the room behind him. Dean smiled, almost excited to see Jo again, and he turned to greet her.

The man standing in the doorway was just as surprised as Dean was. He was shorter than Dean by half a foot, clean shaven with fair skin and-

Dean’s mouth went dry, his knees jelly. He could hear a pounding in his chest and it took him a moment to realize it was his heart.

The man’s furrowed eyes were the ones from Dean’s dream, the hair thick and short-cropped, a dark chestnut color. The man was handsome to anyone’s standards, and Dean felt a slight flush as he noticed that other than a thin sheepskin wrapped at his waist, the man was totally naked. Come from a bath, the man’s chest and shoulders were shuddering slightly from the cold. Stray trickles of water fell freely from his hair, streaming wet trails down his neck, down his chest and lost under the lip of the sheepskin. His mouth was moving, full lips making shapes just for Dean.

Dean mentally slapped himself.

“Sorry what,” Dean cleared his throat, “What did you say?”

The man pursed his lips and tipped his head to one side, his voice was gravelly, deep, and sent a shiver down Dean’s spine, “I asked, What are you doing in my room?”

\------------

Dean sat at the table in Ellen’s kitchen trying to catch his breath. He had changed his shirt to a simple white cotton and left his jacket on, unbuttoned. Ellen set a bowl of thick stew in front of him and he took up his spoon, then hesitated.

“That’s my room he’s in,” Dean protested weakly.

“That room is for whoever needs it,” Ellen replied tersely.

“Is he and Jo…?”

“Oh hell no,” Ellen replied, finding even the concept of it funny for reasons Dean didn’t understand. “He’s a stray. Been here about, maybe a year and a half. Showed up in town dead of winter, bleeding with no idea who he was or where he came from. All he had was his name. Castiel.”

Dean contemplated this for a minute. “That was risky, taking him in. Is he even from Noss?”

“Don’t know,” Ellen shrugged. “But he’s a good boy, he helps out here when he can and I dare say he’s more use to us that we are to him. But he seems content here. The other villagers are torn on him, one half wants him gone and the other seem to want to marry him off to their daughters.”

A slight burn of jealousy made it’s way through Dean’s face, “That’s nice, I guess. Has he tried to find his family?”

“No,” Ellen snapped, “And don’t you mention anything about it to him, either. From the sorry state he showed in, I bet if he has a family they aren’t worth going back to.”

Oh.

Dean forced a smile and spoke as lighthearted as he could manage, which wasn’t much, “So is there a wedding I should be preparing for in the future, then?”

“I am currently unattached,” came the gravelly reply from the stairwell, and Dean looked up.

Castiel stepped down from the final stair and greeted them with the tip of his head. He was dressed formally, in a pair of dark slacks and a white buttoned shirt with large flowing sleeves. He slipped into a pair of simple brown shoes and a long black overcoat.

“You aren’t staying for soup?” Dean asked, pretending not to be disappointed.

“I have work,” Castiel replied.

“I’m sure the tavern doesn’t need you right away,” Dean frowned, he looked to Ellen, “Right?”

Ellen shook her head, “He doesn’t work at the tavern.”

“I teach at the school, and I really need to go or I’ll be late,” Castiel insisted. “But it was… interesting, to meet you…?”

“Dean Winchester,” Dean replied, hoping the addition of his last name would spark a recognition to the smaller man.

“Alright,” Castiel nodded, without even a flicker of knowing, “Have a good day, Mister Winchester.”

“You can just call me Dean.”

“Dean. Goodbye.” The door banged shut behind him.

Dean slouched in his seat, a small smile spreading across his face. The man’s name was Castiel and he was a teacher. That would explain all those books. Dean mused that if he had a teacher like Castiel instead of Westley, he probably would have paid better attention.

“No,” Ellen frowned.

“What?”

“I know that look, Dean,” Ellen said, staring him down, crossly. “You cross that boy off your list of conquests, he’s been through too much already and I won’t allow you to add a broken heart to the list.”

Dean laughed and it even sounded fake to him. “That’s ridiculous. He probably doesn’t even go that way.”

Ellen shrugged her head, “The women who watch him aren’t exactly ugly ducklings, kid. And he hasn’t taken up even one of them. But the point remains the same, he’s a sweetheart and you leave him be.”

“Whatever you say,” Dean shrugged.

The conversation moved forward, onto darker things, and the missing people. There were stories, stories that the Hytheran were back, or that some sort of spirits or bandits haunted the empty land. The village was spooked, nobody went out after dark, and nobody went to the river alone.

\-----------

Castiel walked briskly through the streets, blatantly ignoring the women staring at him, giving a nod in greeting in all the right places, but his mind was elsewhere. Instead of focusing on his lesson for the day, the only thing running through his mind was the mysterious Mister Winchester who attempted to claim his room away on a whim. Castiel didn’t care how pretty the stranger’s eyes were, or how lean and strong he looked, or how much he wanted to touch his own delicate palms against Mister Winchester’s strong tanned hands and delve into a mouth to mouth introduction.

Castiel swallowed dryly, feeling a strange warm tingling in the bottom of his stomach, and quickly decided that it was due to his lack of food consumption.

He almost walked right past the school house.

There was a small crowd of children playing in the yard, and the younger children and older girls rushed up to greet him as he fished the key out of his overcoat to unlock the door. A group of older boys hung back, eying him wearily. The oldest, Reginald Fairchild, mumbled something to the others and they hooted with laughter.

“You’re late!” came the cry of a Lily Fairchild, who was no more than nine years old and Reginald’s little sister.

“I had a very unexpected visitor at my home this morning,” he defended, gracing her with a smile. He expected a certain degree of professionalism from the children he taught and he had promised that he would never lie to them if they gave him that same promise in return.

“Was it a pretty lady?” Lily asked.

“No,” Castiel replied, pulling open the door and returning the key to his overcoat. “It was a man. I imagine he was some sort of warrior travelling from the Lord’s Manor.”

“Is he here to investigate the disappearances?”

“I didn’t ask,” Castiel mused, “But I suppose that would make the most sense.”

Piped up one of the older girls, “Was he handsome?”

Yes, Castiel thought, but said instead, “What is on the inside is more important than what is on the outside. Perhaps he was very handsome, but what if he was also cruel? You wouldn’t want to marry somebody such as that, would you?”

The girl pondered the question, than set her jaw, “I would help him be a better person.”

“You can only help a person to be better if they want to be better,” Castiel lectured, as the children took their seats within the large, brightly light room of the school house. “Some people are perfectly content with being cruel.” He knew that well enough, it described his experience with a good number of the local villagers since his arrival some time ago.

“What was his name?” Lily asked.

“I don’t recall,” Castiel muttered, “Something or other Winchester.”

“Winchester?” The older girl let out a sudden squeak, “You don’t mean… Dean Winchester?”

Castiel ran a hand through his hair. Where had he allowed this conversation to get away from him? They were taking up valuable class time. “And supposing that was it?”

The entire room was suddenly a-light with chatter, the boys with swashbuckling tales of heroics and the girls swooning over handsome romantics.

“You don’t know cause you aren’t from here,” Lily said in a tiny consoling voice, her big brown eyes washing over her teacher with no small amount of pity.

“For Heaven’s sake,” Castiel snapped, annoyed, all of the school-children instantly quiet and watching him, “Who is this Winchester fellow? Just tell me and be done with it so we can move forward to your lessons.”

“Why Sir!” exclaimed the older girl. “Dean Winchester is the Lord of this Fief! He’s practically royalty!”

Castiel’s eyes went wide, and his mouth almost dropped open, it certainly felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach and his heart started to ache. He forced a smile. “Right. Well then,” he forced out, “Lucky me, then. Yes. Now. Your lessons.”

\---------------

It was already getting late in the day and Dean was having no luck. He’d been following the river’s edge for some time and the only things he’d come in contact with were fishermen who’d seen nothing and children who stared at him in awe until he shooed them away. There were a few beavers and fish, and one somewhat precarious encounter with a moose, but nothing of particular importance.

Dean tossed around the idea of going to speak with the village children, since it seemed they frequented the area often to play in the mud and water. The idea that to do so would put him, once again, in direct contact with Castiel delighted him. But he resisted, he’d promised Ellen not to make the man one of his ‘conquests’ and Dean was a man of his word.

He frowned, still not finding anything as to a clue of the missing persons, and vowed to stake out the area under the cover of darkness.

He wondered briefly if Ellen would give him his room back for the duration of his stay.

\-------------

The day was long and difficult, Castiel’s focus constantly torn between the lessons and the memory of Mister Winchester – Lord Winchester. The Fief Lord. What on earth was the Fief Lord doing in their little village? Surely he wasn’t so thick as to be investigating the river disappearances on his own? And how could he possibly have thought even half of the dirty things he had thought about doing with Lord Winchester? It seemed absurd. If he had little chance of gaining his affections back at the tavern, that was certainly entirely dissipated now.

Castiel became so frustrated that his stomach began to hurt and ended classes early, for fear of becoming sick. Several of the students did note that he looked rather pale and a little green, and wished him well before pouring out the door into the cool September air.

Castiel himself didn’t exit until about an hour later, spending the time tidying up his books and papers, arranging and rearranging his texts. He didn’t want to go home – and yes, he supposed he did consider the tavern his home, and Ellen and Jo his family – but he worried that Lord Winchester would be there. And what if he was? What would he say to him? The man had practically seen him naked, and tried to steal his room and was sitting in his kitchen eating his soup with his surrogate mother. What could he possibly say?

Castiel sighed, his stomach growling a response. He hadn’t any money to buy food, and he hadn’t had the chance to pack a lunch or have breakfast because that, that man was taking up his kitchen. Perhaps he was gone. Perhaps it was safe to return home. It seemed a risk worthy of taking as he was beginning to feel as though he could fall down from starvation at any moment.

And for a moment, just a brief fleeting moment, starvation seemed a wiser option than having to face Lord Winchester again.

Castiel took the long way home, going behind the school and through a forest path that outlined the village. The trees were oak, high and looming and Castiel felt a small twinge of connection, as if they reminded him of home, his real home from before he lost his memory.

Something small and hard struck him in the back, knocking him out of his thoughts. Another hit, this time to his face, a small grey object, striking against forehead. He saw it fall and bent to pick it up. A rock. Naturally.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he called into the trees, “I’ve caused no harm!”

Another rock pelted out and he dodged it with a speed that surprised even himself. He followed the trajectory, leading to a large bush that usually produced blueberries come summertime, and hauled the angry child out by the scruff of his shirt.

“Reginald Fairchild. Imagine my surprise,” Castiel sighed, removed the rock in Reginald’s hand and tossed it down to the path. “Run along home and don’t think that I won’t be speaking to your parents about this.”

Reginald made a face. “Go right ahead. They’d see you strung up quick as I would!” He turned tail and ran down the path, as if he were expecting his teacher to give chase, but Castiel just stood there, watching.

He glumly dropped his head, heaved another sigh. Yes, they probably would.

 

 


	2. Pass The Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean does what Dean does best: Fix wounds, and screw sh*t up. Silly Dean.

“Take Jo’s room,” Ellen said, waving a hand dismissively. Dean frowned deeply, opened his mouth to protest, but Ellen pointed a finger to silence him. “That room is Castiel’s now. Not yours. An’d I’ll hear no more about it.”

“Unless you’d like to share? But surely a commoner like myself is too low to share a room with the great Fief Lord Winchester.” Castiel spoke from the doorway, feeling particularly miserable and vicious. He’d had some time to think on his way home and had come to the conclusion that he hated this stupid fief and everyone in it. Almost everyone.

Dean ignored the barb as he took in Castiel’s ruffled appearance, deducing instantly that he didn’t have such a great day. Dean’s forehead creased with worry, “You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Now that he mentioned it, Castiel did notice a thin stream of wet slowly gurgling it’s way down his forehead, above his left eye. He pressed his finger there, it stung, and it came back bloody. “Oh.” He shrugged and dropped down into a seat at the small table, opposite Dean.

“What do you mean ‘Oh’? What happened?” Dean demanded, suddenly filled with the need to get retribution upon whoever might hurt this… weird man who just met today. Dean inwardly scoffed at the feelings rising up within him that he never even knew existed. He must be going crazy.

“It’s nothing,” Castiel insisted. “One of the children was throwing rocks at me, it’s just a lucky shot. Could you please pass the bread?”

Dean stared dumbfounded. “Did you talk to the child’s parents?”

Castiel paused in his stretch for the bread, and then receded. He gave a thin, sad smile to Dean. “I’m afraid they are the ones planting this seed of hate into the child in the first place. Now please. The bread.”

Dean pushed the bread across the table forcefully, deciding that if he is going crazy, he shall channel the insanity into a revenge plot toward everyone who hurts Castiel.

Ellen, looking very much like this was an everyday occurrence, approached with a wet cloth and dabbed away the blood from Castiel’s forehead. “It’s quite deep for just a little rock,” she mused. “You might need stitches.”

Castiel nodded, replied between bits of bread, “I’ll check my treasure chest and see if I have enough to see the doctor.”

“I can stitch it up,” Dean suddenly offered. Ellen and Castiel stared at him like he’d grown three new heads. “Well I can. I’ve had training as a field medic.” He trained his gaze onto Castiel, who’s breath hitched in his throat and his face flushed red. “My father, the previous Fief Lord, he died in the war against the Hytherans years ago, of infection. I wanted to be able to prevent something like that from happening in the future, so I demanded that medicine studies be added to my curriculum.”

Castiel nodded, tearing his eyes away from Dean and finding his bread the most interesting thing in the world. “Well alright then.”

\---------

Dean threaded the needle with a fine silk white thread. Castiel looked on, twitching and shifting as he sat on the bed in his room. Dean insisted they do it in there, as to not drip blood in Ellen’s kitchen or frighten off the tavern customers if Castiel started screaming. Castiel’s eyes had widened at that and Dean received a warning slap on the shoulder from Ellen.

“Hold still,” Dean commanded, moving closer, standing in the space between Castiel’s legs. The needle punctured the flesh of Castiel’s forehead cleanly and smoothly slid through, creating a pinprick hole on the other side of the cut. Castiel gasped slightly, his breath quickening and Dean worked fast as he could without messing up, closing at three stitches and cutting off the thread.

“There, you’re done,” Dean said, he offered a slight smile and looked to Castiel, only just suddenly realizing that they were practically nose to nose. His heart thudded in his ears.

“Th-thank you,” Castiel replied, breathless.

The air from the words brushed softly against Dean’s mouth, and he stared, mercilessly trapped in the big blue oceanic eyes staring up at him, looking so open and innocent and vulnerable. “Uh, I, uh…” Dean mumbled, intending to say, ‘You’re welcome’ but instead of words coming from his mouth, it rained downward and captured Castiel. Their lips moved together, hot and needy, a moan escaping Castiel and disappearing into Dean. Dean leaned forward, pushing Castiel backwards onto the bed and his cock pressed hard against the seam of his pants. It ground against a noticeably sizable bulge in Castiel’s thin black trousers, eliciting a small cry from between Castiel’s lips. Dean captured Castiel’s mouth again, sliding his hands beneath his shirt and up a smooth hard expanse of skin.

_No._

Dean halted suddenly.

_Do not make this boy one of your conquests, Dean. You promised._

Ellen. And he _had_ promised.

Dean allowed himself one more press of lips against lips, and then pulled away, coming to his feet.

“What? I… what?” Castiel mumbled, half-incoherent, his eyes glazed with passion, lips swollen with kisses. “What’re you doin’?”

_God damn you, Ellen._

“I can’t do this,” Dean said, backing away.

“Wait,” Castiel protested, looking up at him with pleading panicked eyes, “Why not? I don’t understand.”

Dean ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.” and he turned and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean, you bastard. 
> 
> I know, it's short. BUT on the other hand, sexy almost porn. I think that makes up for it.
> 
> At some point in time, I'll prepare an art for this chapter :D


End file.
